Post office shuts
after 80 years

THE town’s main post office closed on Wednesday (March 12) after more than 80 years of trading.

The branch in Cambridge Road is one of 70 Crown branches, those owned directly by Post Office Ltd, which were targeted by company bosses to either shut or be franchised out to a retailer.

Services at the branch are now based at WH Smith in Priory Meadow.

The move comes as a blow to campaigners who fought for a year to keep the post office in Cambridge Road.

A petition signed by almost 7,000 people protesting against the closure of the town centre branch was presented to Post Office bosses last November by Sarah Owen, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Hastings.

Last year bosses at Post Office Ltd put forward proposals to shut the branch and move it to WH Smith in Priory Meadow.

Since March 2013, members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have staged a dozen strikes at the Cambridge Road branch in protest.

Mole Meade, the CWU’s area representative for the south east, said: “It’s a tragic day and spells the death of a great public service.

“It also marks the end of more than 130 years of Crown post offices in the Hastings area.”

The Cambridge Road post office opened in February 1930 after three years of building. Memorials commemorating Post Office staff who died in both world wars are housed in the Cambridge Road building and now are set to be moved to the delivery office in Braybrooke Road.

The Post Office said it was losing £40 million a year and needed to modernise its network.